F-14s Rolling over.

[Condor68]

Not really important but in a recent beer driven discussion the fact that the USN lost a few Tomcats rolling overboard in the I think early eighties came up.One of the guys reckoned they found and raised them.Given technology at the time I would think they tried but cant remember seeing any results. Suppose losing them was bigger news than salvaging them.Anybody remember ? I had a quick few searches and find them going over but nothing the other way.

Keith

[raptor9]

I remember one that rolled over in the States, and the tail fin was eventually washed up on an Irish beach!!.

[Alf]

There was the famous one in September 1976 off the Scottish coast (Scarpa Flow area), possibly the first F-14 lost actually in service. It fell off the carrier JFK and the USN went to great lengths to recover it as there were rumours of a Soviet ship having similar ideas of getting hold of it.

[Alf]

There was the famous one in September 1976 off the Scottish coast (Scarpa Flow area), possibly the first F-14 lost actually in service. It fell off the carrier JFK and the USN went to great lengths to recover it as there were rumours of a Soviet ship having similar ideas of getting hold of it.

https://simpleflying.com/soviets-fishin ... f-kennedy/

[Vulcanone]

I remember one that rolled over in the States, and the tail fin was eventually washed up on an Irish beach!!.

I don't recall that one rolling off a carrier, Tony Holmes did a write up for it in AFM, as the guy that recovered it sold it to a well known pilot on the BBMF. (Parky) The only one I recall that did was the then very new F-14A that was on its first cruise with VF-32 in 1976 off Scotland. And when it went overboard they went to great depths (seriously) to recover it, just like the RAF/RN F-35B and the US Navy F-35C more recently...

Alf beat me too it slightly, But there are several folks on here that know more bout F-14s.

[zoot horn rollo]

There was the famous one in September 1976 off the Scottish coast (Scarpa Flow area), possibly the first F-14 lost actually in service. It fell off the carrier JFK and the USN went to great lengths to recover it as there were rumours of a Soviet ship having similar ideas of getting hold of it.

I was on a university Botany field trip at the time and based in Durness. We were in the pub one night and got talking to a bloke who was clearly not a local. It turned out that he was employed by EMI and had been subcontracted to the MOD to sit in an electronic listening post listening to the Soviets trying to find the F-14.

There was a picture on of the dredged up wreckage on the rear end of some warship passing under the Forth Road Bridge heading for Rosyth

[Condor68]

Thanks for the replies I thought 2 went over up North of different carriers.Obviously mists of time taking effect.

Thanks

Keith

[22A]

And now a F/A 18 joins the party;
An F/A-18 fighter jet slipped off the hangar deck of an aircraft carrier deployed to the Middle East, as sailors were towing the aircraft into place in the hangar bay of the USS Harry S. Truman on Monday, the Navy said.

The crew members who were in the pilot seat of the Super Hornet and on the small towing tractor jumped out before the jet and the tug went into the Red Sea. One sailor sustained a minor injury, the Navy said.